The Internet... Is This The End?

Wikipedia - "Network neutrality (equivalently net neutrality, Internet neutrality or simply NN) is a principle that is applied to residential broadband networks, and potentially to all networks. A neutral broadband network is one that is free of restrictions......"


The Internet as we know it is facing a serious threat that will change the way user’s access and share information. That threat is censorship and control of what people see and do on the Internet. Network neutrality is the principle that let Internet users be in control of what content they view and what applications they use online. It is this basic principal that has let user’s access internet content with no restriction or censorship what so ever. The Internet has operated according to this neutrality principle since the earliest days and has allowed many companies, including YouTube and MySpace, to launch, grow, and change the way users interact online. By allowing the Government and Broadband Carriers to control what people see and do online would damage the free flow of ideas that have made the internet what it is today. Net neutrality is the answer to the success of the internet and should be fought to be preserved.


Today the internet is an entity that serves as an information superhighway that lets anyone in the United States share ideas and information with anyone that can access them. The big issue at hand is that broadband carriers want Congress's permission to determine what content gets to you first, fastest or even at all. They want the power to control the amount of bandwidth given to specific companies, online application and users. Allowing broadband carriers to reserve huge amounts of bandwidth for their own services and others that are willing to pay an additional fee will not give consumers the broadband Internet our country and economy need. If the phone and cable companies get their way, websites and small companies who aren’t able to afford these fees would be put in a slow lane. The broadband carriers should not be allowed to use their power to discriminate against competing content or applications. For example, when you purchase telephone service you do not expect the telephone companies to tell customers who they can call or what they can say, it would be ridiculous. In the same sense, broadband carriers should not be allowed to use their power to control online activity and let the additional fee paying user’s access to higher bandwidth than non-fee paying users.

The government support of internet censorship is justified and focused on a wide range of topics, including negative influential content, pornography, and bomb–making instructions as well as many others. The justification for censorship of this kind of content is that this would protect children and young adults from accessing harmful content. This is believed to be socially beneficial, even if the cost limits users to what they can access on the Internet. But who is to say that the government has the right to protect the children and young adults from harmful internet content? They do not, that is why children have parents, to protect them from harm and harmful material. Even if that is not enough, there is technology out there that filters harmful content from children’s computers as well as computers in public places. Society has taken measures that insure safety while users surf the internet. There is no need for government to help regulate online activities and content, unless they have other agendas in the reasons why they support it.

Many laws have been passed and overturned by congress, one of them being the Child Online Protection Act (COPA). Wikipedia.com states that “it is a law in the United States of America, passed in 1998 with the declared purpose of protecting minors from harmful sexual material on the Internet.” Craig A Depken from firstmonday.org argues that “the Internet is not limited by national borders and therefore attempts to limit what is posted on the Internet may be impractical; limits on what can be posted within the borders of the United States (or any other country) could be easily avoided.” The internet is considered text material just like books and newspapers. This gives people the power to add content of any kind and access it and is granted by the right of freedom of speech. If the government or broadband companies try to censor and destroy equality online, this nation will become similar to that of communist China and North Korea.

Network Neutrality is a major issue facing the United States. It may change the way people access information online and have devastating effects on technological innovations, free flow of ideas and the online economy. If nothing is done to preserve net neutrality it will have a lasting effect that will cause the ever evolving entity of the net to stand still. The effect of government support for internet censorship can lead to other types of information and media censorship. It is not up to the government or broadband providers to decide what content people chose to access, it is up to the people themselves.